Letter: Look to Florida for crime control
Date: Sep 22, 2006 9:06 AM
PUBLICATION: National Post
DATE: 2006.09.22
EDITION: National
SECTION: Letters
PAGE: A15
BYLINE: Dean Roxby
SOURCE: National Post
WORD COUNT: 180

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Look to Florida for crime control

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Now that the shock from the Dawson College shooting has worn off, we
should look at how to prevent such gun-related fatalities in the future.

For crimes where a gun is used, we should look to Florida and their
10-20-Life system of punishment.

SIMPLY PUT:

- If you are convicted of committing a crime with a gun: 10 years
imprisonment.

- If you fire that gun while committing the crime: 20 years in jail.

- If someone is injured or killed by gunfire during the crime: life in
prison.

This has resulted in a dramatic reduction in gun violence in Florida. It
works.

Of course, this will not have any deterrent effect on someone who is
about to stage a very public murder-suicide.

In such cases, suicide crisis lines are perhaps the only way to prevent
such events. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, such help is often
lacking. One again, money spent on flawed registration schemes is money
that is not spent on health care and crisis lines.

This sounds very much like what Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood of the
Yorkshire Constabulary in Britain mentioned in his book, Firearms
Control.

He wrote: “The great danger lies, not in the ineffectiveness of such
restrictions, but in the belief that they will solve the problem. Whilst
this mistaken belief persists, the real problem will not receive the
attention and action it clearly and urgently requires.”

Dean Roxby, Langley, B.C.